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Are Bullies After Our Culture?

To prove his point that the commons is under attack, Bollier has filled Bullies with example after example of how corporate lawyers have swooped in on artists and consumers who have tried to use products and logos in ways other than those prescribed by the corporations themselves.

As an example, Bollier presents the case of “AiboPet,” an enthusiastic owner of one of Sony’s robotic pets. When AiboPet set up a website that showed other Aibo owners how to make their pets dance, Sony quickly notified him that, by manipulating the Aibo software, he was violating provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In other words, even though AiboPet had full ownership of his Aibo, Sony could still control how he modified it and whether he taught others to do the same. Rather than face a lawsuit, AiboPet quickly shut down his website. —Amit Asaravala —Are Bullies After Our Culture? (Wired)